Bill read a Second time.

Harry Cohen: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of that reply, I hereby give notice that I shall be giving an application to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Peter Bone: A former Muslim inmate has said:
	"Muslims run the prisons and there's nothing screws can do about it".
	After 13 years of Labour, this tired Government are making it worse. Does the Minister agree that things cannot go on like this and that it is time for change?

Michael Wills: One lesson of the recent dispute was the persuasive eloquence of my hon. Friend. He deserves a lot of praise for that, and he will be much missed in this House.
	This Government take our relationship with the Crown dependencies extremely seriously. Certainly when I was the Minister responsible, I had frequent meetings with them, as does my colleague the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, the noble Lord Bach. I am sure that all Ministers in the Ministry of Justice will continue to do that. I know my hon. Friend's views on the Sir Humphreys and so on, but the officials who deal with such matters are excellent. They do a very good job, on which they should be congratulated.

Jack Straw: I profoundly disagree with the hon. Gentleman. Those offenders are not "cluttering up" prisons; they are there because they have been assessed as dangerous by the courts following legislation that we introduced in 2003. There is no entitlement for a prisoner who is on an IPP sentence to be released when his tariff expires. The prisoner has to show that it is safe to release him or her-they are mainly males. The responsibility for proving that it is safe to release the prisoner is on the prisoner. We make available a range of courses, but it is not about ticking boxes; it is about prisoners taking responsibility for themselves. There is no doubt about the effectiveness of the sentence. In my judgment, it is one of the measures that we introduced that has considerably contributed to making this country much safer and to getting crime down.

Stephen Hepburn: Will the Justice Secretary commission fresh medical evidence on pleural plaques, because it has come to light that the medical evidence on which he relied in coming to his judgment on pleural plaques came from a professor who openly admits that he has never come into contact with a pleural plaques' victim?

Jack Straw: First, I want to pay tribute in the House, as I have done privately in letters, to the three prison officers who have been injured, one of whom, Mr. Wilde, has been severely injured. Fortunately, such attacks on, and injuries to, prison officers are not frequent, but when they do take place, they are terrible for individuals, their families and their colleagues at work. They are also a reminder of the inherent danger that prison officers face, particularly in category A, high-risk prisons. A lockdown is taking place at the moment-it takes two or three days in high-risk, high-category prisons. It involves going all the way through the prison searching for any kind of weapons. Other measures are also in place to ensure that those two incidents, which we believe are unrelated-but that is the subject of an investigation-do not happen again.

Jack Straw: The hon. Gentleman says that they want to do it by linking it to a fall in crime. However, I am clear, and so is my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, that one of the reasons why we have been the first Government since the war to get crime consistently down, rather than up, is that we have been locking up serious, dangerous and persistent offenders for longer-they are being taken out of the system. That is how hon. Members' communities, and mine, have been made safe. Letting out 40,000 prisoners is a way of making the country even more dangerous than when the Conservatives were last in power.

William Bain: Next year will represent the centenary of the passing of the very first Parliament Act. Would not a good way to mark that occasion be to do what is provided for in the preamble to the Act-namely to legislate for a fully elected second Chamber of Parliament?

Crispin Blunt: Will the Secretary of State answer the substantive point raised by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell)? Surely it cannot possibly be right that 2,400 prisoners serving indeterminate sentences who want to attend courses to address their reoffending behaviour are unable to do so. That can be neither right nor economic.

Jack Straw: The hon. Lady raises an important issue. I think that she is asking whether staves should be available to prison officers in young offenders institutions for under-18s. I received representations on that from YOI staff over about two years, and I conducted a review on it. This is quite a difficult issue, in terms of balance, and all the staff are agreed on that. In the event, I endorsed the existing policy, but I have looked into this very actively, and I promise her that it is a policy that has to be kept under active review.

Maria Eagle: We increasingly involve third sector and other organisations in offender management to make sure that proper arrangements are in place for those leaving prison, so that they do not fall between the cracks or between services and fail to get the support that they need. It is an increasing part of what we do.

Jack Straw: We are always looking at ways in which we can tighten up the legislation on antisocial behaviour orders. Before ASBOs were introduced-by me as Home Secretary in 1998, as it happens-there was no provision in the criminal law for dealing with persistent antisocial behaviour. ASBOs have been a successful tool available to local communities, police and the courts in dealing with this behaviour. Where someone breaches an ASBO, they carry out an offence with a maximum sentence of five years. What we wish to see is these full powers being better used by the courts.

Jack Straw: It makes that individual, whoever it may be, a persistent offender. Whether a community punishment or a short sentence would be appropriate is, I think, open to question.  [Interruption.] I am therefore not surprised that the Liberal Democrats are opposing indeterminate sentences for public protection, which are, perhaps, what is needed.

Edward Timpson: What is the Secretary of State doing to address concerns from professionals, practitioners and the public alike over the staff shortages and massive casework increases in the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, including the problem of having a period of up to five months during which there has been no allocation of any guardian in a case involving vulnerable children?

Julie Kirkbride: Will the Secretary of State reassure my constituent whose relative was murdered by the Yorkshire Ripper many years ago that he will never be let out of prison for his heinous crimes?

David Miliband: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I will report to the House on the investigation announced on 17 February by the Prime Minister into the use of counterfeit British passports in the killing of Mr. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai on 19 January. The UK is continuing to support inquiries under way in a number of countries including in the United Arab Emirates itself. However, at the end of last week the Serious Organised Crime Agency reported to the Home Secretary on its investigation. Its report has now been studied by the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and me, and was presented to the Cabinet this morning.
	In the past 24 hours I have spoken to the Foreign Ministers of the other countries whose passports were involved. Their investigations are continuing. It would not be right to release the report in full, for legal and other reasons, but it is right that the House knows a summary of the conclusions that SOCA has reached and the action that we will be taking in response.
	First, for the avoidance of any doubt, I should make it clear to the House that in the case of each of the 12 passport holders to whom SOCA spoke, it found no evidence to suggest that any of those individuals were anything other than wholly innocent victims of identify theft. Secondly-this should not need saying-I must add in the strongest possible terms that the UK had absolutely no advance knowledge of what happened in Dubai nor any involvement whatever in the killing.
	SOCA conducted an extremely professional investigation. The Israeli authorities met all the requests that SOCA made of them. SOCA was drawn to the conclusion that the passports used were copied from genuine British passports when handed over for inspection to individuals linked to Israel, either in Israel or in other countries. It found no link to any other country. Given that the operation was a very sophisticated one, in which high-quality forgeries were made, the Government judge it highly likely that the forgeries were made by a state intelligence service. Taking that together with other inquiries and the link to Israel established by SOCA, we have concluded that there are compelling reasons to believe that Israel was responsible for the misuse of British passports.
	The Government take this matter extremely seriously. Such misuse of British passports is intolerable. It presents a hazard to the safety of British nationals in the region. Also, it represents a profound disregard for the sovereignty of the UK. The fact that that was done by a country that is a friend, with significant diplomatic, cultural, business and personal ties to the UK, only adds insult to injury. No country or Government could stand by in such a situation.
	Israel is a democratic country, with remarkable achievements to its name, in a dangerous part of the world. That makes international co-operation even more important. Britain has worked and will continue to work closely with Israel on a range of issues, notably the Iranian nuclear threat, but that co-operation must be based on transparency and trust. The Government are therefore taking a number of steps, based on the evidence of what has occurred in this case, to make clear their deep unhappiness at what has happened, and to seek to ensure that such an abuse does not happen again.
	I met Foreign Minister Lieberman on 22 February. At that stage, our investigation was only just starting. I told him then of our deep concern about the incident, and made clear my expectation that Israel would co-operate with the investigation. I met Mr. Lieberman again in Brussels yesterday. I set out the findings of the SOCA report, our intended actions, and our determination to ensure that this affair was never repeated. I handed over a letter seeking a formal assurance from him that in the future the state of Israel would never be party to the misuse of British passports in such a way.
	Diplomatic work between Britain and Israel needs to be conducted according to the highest standards of trust. The work of our embassy in Israel and the Israeli embassy in London is vital to the co-operation between our countries. So is the strategic dialogue between our countries. Those ties are important, and we want them to continue. However, I have asked for a member of the embassy of Israel to be withdrawn from the UK as a result of this affair, and that is taking place.
	Members will be concerned about the fate of the British passport holders involved. As one of them said, to go to bed as a citizen and wake up as a wanted terrorist is shocking. We have provided consular assistance for the 12 people whose identities and passports were misused. As part of that, we offered them all new biometric passports, which are being rolled out to the whole British population and, being considerably more difficult to counterfeit, should give them the confidence that they need that they can still travel safely on their British passports. Eleven of the 12 have so far been issued with new biometric passports.
	To alert other British nationals to the risk that their passports might be misused in the same way, I am today amending our travel advice on Israel to make clear the potential risk, and to set out the steps that people can take to minimise that risk.
	The middle east is not a place for woolly or wishful thinking. The Israeli people crave and deserve legitimacy and security. The United Kingdom will not compromise its support for that, but the actions in this case are completely unacceptable, and they must stop.
	I commend the statement to the House.

William Hague: I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement, and for setting out the measures that are to be taken. Let me say at the outset that the Opposition agree with them. We should all regret having to take such measures against a country that is a friend of Britain and with whose diplomats we enjoy good relations, but we cannot permit cloning of, interference with or misuse of British passports by another state. If the Foreign Secretary is truly satisfied, on the basis of all the evidence he has seen, that that has happened in this case, it is right for Britain to take measures both to rectify the situation and to show that it is unacceptable to us.
	Is the Foreign Secretary aware that there was a similar case in 1987, when it was discovered that Israel had forged British passports for intelligence operations? On that occasion, the then Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, assured the then Foreign Secretary, my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Howe of Aberavon, that it would not happen again. It seems that those assurances have not been upheld.
	On the results of the investigation, we welcome the fact that Israel co-operated with the Serious Organised Crime Agency in its inquiries. The Foreign Secretary said that he had spoken to the Foreign Ministers of the other countries whose passports were allegedly involved. Can he tell us anything about their own investigations? Can he tell us when he expects those investigations to be concluded, and whether he expects any of those other countries to take similar action in parallel with the United Kingdom?
	On the need to prevent this from happening again, the Foreign Secretary will know that as soon as the use of British passports was uncovered last month, we argued that the Government should seek a specific assurance that Israel would never sanction the misuse of British passports in any future operation. We therefore welcome the fact that the Foreign Secretary has now formally requested such an assurance from his Israeli counterpart. Will he make it clear, however, that it is not just a question of an assurance that no future counterfeiting will take place, but a question of an assurance that there will be no further use of any British passports that may already have been copied? That last assurance will be of particular concern to British travellers who may fear that other versions of their passports are in circulation.
	Did the Foreign Secretary receive any indication from the Israeli Foreign Minister that such assurances could or would be given, and will he intend, if they are received, to change the Foreign Office travel advice relating to Israel accordingly?
	The Foreign Secretary said that the biometric passports introduced four years ago are more difficult to counterfeit. Does he consider these new passports to be as invulnerable to counterfeiting as it is possible to make them, or will the Government review whether any other steps are needed to protect the integrity of British passports? Is there any suggestion that British passports are more vulnerable than those of other countries, including other EU countries?
	Finally, on the effect of this on relations with the United Arab Emirates, can the Foreign Secretary say any more about what assistance SOCA and other British authorities have provided to the Dubai authorities at their request and whether this is continuing? Has he had any indication from the UAE Government that more stringent rules will be applied to the issuing of visas to British citizens visiting or resident the country?
	There are many issues on which Britain and Israel quite rightly work closely together: a two-state solution to the middle east peace process, diplomatic action over Iran's nuclear programme and the expansion of trade between our countries to the benefit of all our citizens. But such relations and co-operation must be able to take place in an atmosphere of mutual trust, and it is necessary for that trust to be reaffirmed so that relations can be as productive as they should be. We therefore think that the measures taken by the Government are right and that the Israeli Foreign Minister, as he considers the Foreign Secretary's letter, should know that it comes with united support across this House.

David Miliband: As I said very clearly in my statement, the request for an individual to leave-and the decision of the Israelis to accede to that request-was made by us. It was linked, precisely as I have said, in the work that we have done to the investigations that have taken place. We have been very clear with the Israeli authorities about the basis on which we were asking for an individual to leave.

Douglas Hogg: What the Foreign Secretary has described is a criminal conspiracy to facilitate murder, probably contrary to UK domestic law under the terrorism legislation. That being so, has the Foreign Secretary considered what officials not in the Israeli Government or elsewhere not covered by diplomatic privilege may be liable to criminal sanctions before the UK courts? If he has, what steps does he intend to take to pursue that matter, for example through the issuing of international warrants of arrest?

David Miliband: I believe that in Israel the system for governance of the intelligence agencies is rather different from this country, as the Foreign Minister explained. The Foreign Ministry does not have the line of responsibility for foreign intelligence in the way that it does in this country, where the Secret Intelligence Service is responsible to me. That is not how the system works in Israel, and I take at face value exactly what the Foreign Minister said to me a month ago and yesterday.

Bob Neill: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Later today, under items 9 and 10 on the Order Paper, the House is due to vote, without debate under Standing Order No. 118(6), on two orders. They are local government structural changes to create unitary authorities in Exeter and Norwich. They were considered yesterday afternoon by a Delegated Legislation Committee, and yesterday evening in the other place. In the other place, an extraordinary thing occurred: on the Norwich order, a motion to regret and delay the matter was passed after a Division; and on the Exeter order, the Government accepted the motion put forward to delay its implementation without seeking to divide the House.
	Given that there can be no debate, is it in order for this House to be asked to vote on those two orders when it is not now clear whether the Government intend to proceed with them, or to delay them in accordance with the stance that they adopted in the upper House? Could we at least ask that the Minister be brought to this House to explain the Government's position before we vote on something that may turn out to be a false premise?

BILL PRESENTED
	 — 
	Sustainability of livestock farming and food production (Strategy)

Jim Cunningham: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the compulsory installation of automatic fire sprinklers in all new-build educational establishments; and for connected purposes.
	The purpose of the Bill is simple: all new-build nursery, primary and secondary schools, academies and technology colleges should be fitted with sprinkler systems in order to reduce the damage caused by fire and to save lives. I am aware that this is a very topical issue. The Welsh Assembly has passed the Legislative Competence (Housing) (Fire Safety) Order 2010, which proposes the installation of fire sprinklers in all new residential premises in Wales. There was clear support for that in the Assembly. There is also a Bill going through the other place-Lord Harrison's Building Regulations (Amendment) Bill.
	Approximately 1,400 schools in the UK are damaged by fire each year-roughly 20 schools per week. That is only the reported figure; there may be many smaller fires that go unreported. The Arson Prevention Bureau states that almost a third of school fires occur during the day, putting the safety of staff and pupils at risk. According to the 2007 figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government, 42 per cent. of the fires in that year were arson. It is estimated that fewer than 200 schools of the 28,000 are fitted with sprinklers. According to the DCLG, the cost of school fires stood at £58 million from 2000 to 2004, with the total cost estimated by the National Union of Teachers to be in the region of £100 million. In 2006, six fires resulted in damage of £1 million each. That is enough to employ a substantial number of new teachers and provide new building facilities.
	Fire causes untold damage to school buildings and facilities. We can all recall examples of school fires in our own constituencies that have caused great damage. As I said, the true cost is estimated to be about £100 million per year. However, fires also have many serious knock-on effects such as necessitating the hire of temporary accommodation for staff and pupils. The National Foundation for Educational Research estimates that the education of approximately 90,000 children is disrupted each year by school fires and that those from disadvantaged backgrounds are most likely to be affected. Coursework can be lost and exams postponed due to fire. It can lead to a drop in morale among staff and pupils. It can have an impact on those in the wider community who use the facilities for adult education or sports, for example.
	The published Government guidance for fire safety in schools, "Building Bulletin 100: Design for Fire Safety in Schools", states that
	"all new schools should have fire sprinklers installed except for a few very low risk schools",
	subject to a risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis. The value of sprinkler systems has been applauded by the Government as a weapon against arson. To quote from "Building Bulletin 100",
	"Sprinkler systems installed in buildings can reduce the risk to life and significantly reduce the degree of damage caused by fire."
	That is a welcome statement, but installation is not currently compulsory. Government statistics state that 70 per cent. of new-build schools are fitted with fire sprinklers, but it is not a legal requirement. Although "Building Bulletin 100" is to be commended for the importance that it attaches to sprinklers, it is not enough for the Government merely to expect new schools to be fitted with sprinklers-it should be mandatory for all schools.
	The figures for 2007 show that 58 per cent. of school fires were accidental. That means that a school classed as being at low risk from arson attacks would still be at a high risk from accidental fires. In my constituency, for example, the west midlands fire service reported a 100 per cent. increase in accidental school fires in 2008-09. They could have been caused by many factors, such as an electrical fault. We need to ensure that all schools are as safe as possible for our children and to protect against all types of fire, accidental or deliberate. Fire sprinklers would help to achieve that.
	It is for local authorities to determine their policy on fitting sprinklers. However, while some local authorities, such as Coventry city council in my constituency, have a clear policy of fitting sprinklers into new schools, some do not. There is no unified stance across local authorities. There is also a worrying trend that private finance initiative projects need not comply with Government guidance on this issue, as they do not come under local authority jurisdiction. For example, in Coventry, there was recently a fire at Woodway Park school. The building is derelict, but it took 60 firefighters to fight the blaze. Crucially, the PFI project next door, Grace academy, has just reopened after a fire that cost £15 million. That school does not have sprinklers. One must argue that if one school can burn down, there is an equal risk to the school next door. I do not believe that the Government envisaged PFI projects opting out of the guidance, so there needs to be a mandatory requirement.
	There are many benefits associated with fire sprinklers. They reduce deaths; there have been no fire deaths in UK buildings fitted with a fully maintained sprinkler system. Sprinklers act within three to five minutes of a fire starting and help control and contain it in a small area of a building. They improve firefighter safety, as the fire is controllable. Fires are smaller and more controlled, which limits the rebuilding costs. Recent research estimates that property damage has been reduced by 80 per cent. where a sprinkler is fitted. They also have environmental benefits, as they use less water to tackle fires. It is estimated that fire hoses uses 1,000 litres a minute, whereas fire sprinklers use only 60 litres per head per minute. Water is also used more efficiently, as sprinklers act earlier.
	My Bill would make a simple change that would have a huge impact on schools' fire safety. Schools should be one of the safest places for my constituents and residents around the country, and my Bill would help achieve that. Powered sprinklers are a simple, efficient way to increase fire safety in schools. They minimise the property damage caused by fire and dramatically reduce the risk to life. Many organisations, such as the west midlands fire service and the Chief Fire Officers Association support this Bill for the mandatory installation of fire sprinklers. I commend it to the House and thank the west midlands fire service and everybody associated with it.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Ordered,
	That Mr. Jim Cunningham, Mr. Michael Clapham, Mr. Brian H. Donohoe, Mr. Geoffrey Robinson, Mr. Brian Jenkins, Mr. Ian McCartney, Annette Brooke and Rosie Cooper present the Bill.
	Mr. Jim Cunningham accordingly presented the Bill.
	 Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 23 April, and to be printed (Bill 93).

William Cash: I share my hon. Friend's concern. He said that it is probing amendment, but of course, in the context of the Bill, which comes from the House of Lords and is now in its final stages, the Minister's answer will have to be definitive; otherwise, it will not be a probing amendment and it will be made very rapidly.
	Having said that, the measure seems extraordinary, because clause 4(2) states:
	"Section 2(2) applies to assistance, encouragement and inducements in the United Kingdom or elsewhere"
	and clause 4(3) confines the application to conduct that arises under clause 2(1)
	"and to assistance, encouragement and inducements"
	that arise under clause 2(2).
	However, "conduct" arises only in respect of clause 2(1) and the other matters-
	"assistance, encouragement and inducements"-
	apply only respect of clause 2(2).
	We are often accused-particularly those of us who are lawyers-of being rather pedantic, but the truth is that legislation is about law. I am not suggesting that the Minister would do this in the context of the debate, but it would seem rather absurd to accuse us of being either pedantic or pernickety when we draw attention to inconsistencies. There are strange aspects to the Bill, and given its object, I concur with what my hon. Friend said. I look forward to both an explanation and a definitive answer from the Minister, because we are in the later stages of our consideration of the Bill, and what he says may determine what we do after Committee.

Chris Bryant: I understand the nature of the argument made by the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), but I want to explain why I think he is wrong.
	Clause 2(1) applies to conduct in the United Kingdom or elsewhere-that is about conduct-and clause 2(2) applies to
	"assistance, encouragement and inducements in the United Kingdom or elsewhere."
	However, clause 4(3) applies to what happens outside the United Kingdom. Although it is perfectly legitimate for us to extend the provisions that we make for British people who engage in such activity outside the United Kingdom, creating an offence for people who are not British and who are from other parts of the world, over whom we therefore have no jurisdiction, would be inappropriate. Article 9 of the convention on cluster munitions, on which all our legislation has been based, obliges state parties to impose penal sanctions to prevent any prohibited activity from being
	"undertaken by persons or on territory under its jurisdiction or control."
	Obviously, the rest of the world is not under our jurisdiction or control. That is why we have not sought to act against foreigners abroad. We are acting against British people abroad, and against anybody in the UK, but not against foreigners abroad.

William Cash: This is the Committee stage-and it is on the Floor of the House, too-so it is important that we get these things completely right. I have to say that, again, I dispute what the Minister has said. He referred to the legislation on land mines, but he will know, above all Members of the House, that that long predated the European arrest warrant. That is the reason why, I suspect, the Bill has not taken sufficient account of the legislation that currently applies.

William Cash: So it predates the European arrest warrant, which means my point remains. The situation I have in mind could easily be affected by that new European arrest warrant, so there is a problem and the Minister is not addressing it-he is simply saying that we are wrong without understanding that problem.

Chris Bryant: I think we are making slightly heavy weather of this. In an ideal world, the whole world would be ratifying this convention at the same time and we would be seeing an end to cluster munitions. There is a difficulty for us, however, because some countries are not. So, for instance, a national of a country that is not ratifying who uses cluster munitions in another part of the world-not in the UK-and who has no involvement in the UK, could, when travelling through the UK, be arrested for something that is perfectly legal in their own country and in the country where they operated. That is the difficulty that would come about were we to get rid of subsection (3). For instance, because the United States has not ratified, and has no intention at the moment-unfortunately-of doing so, an American military personnel engaged in the use of cluster munitions in another part of the world, could be arrested immediately when passing through the UK. I do not think that is what people really want to countenance. That is why I disagree with the amendment and urge Members to vote against it, I am afraid.

William Cash: I would like to take up the Minister's last point, in the context of a provision to which we have not referred, namely clause 4(4). The terms of that subsection are apparently in contradiction to the provisions in clause 4(3), because under subsection (4) clause 2(2) is said to apply
	"whether or not the conduct assisted, encouraged or induced takes place, or (if it takes place) will take place, in the United Kingdom or elsewhere."
	However, in subsection (3), which we have just been discussing-and on which I have not received a satisfactory answer from the Minister regarding the European dimension-there is a clear contradiction because subsection (4) could, in certain circumstances, displace or run parallel to subsection (3). This is a very strange piece of drafting.
	The Minister is just asserting that the hon. Member for Aylesbury and I are wrong, rather than giving us a considered assessment of the situation. I understand that he is not a lawyer, and that lawyers are not always right, but there is an inconsistency here. I suspect that the draftsman has gone back to the landmines legislation of 1998 and simply adopted it without having regard to the advances and changes in the law that have taken place since. It is possible that nothing will come of this, because of the probing nature of my hon. Friend's amendment, but I believe that there is a difficulty involved, and the Minister does not take us any further merely by asserting that we are wrong. We have very little opportunity to get this right, and there could be a problem with this provision in a year or so- [ Interruption. ] The Minister shakes his head, but he cannot see into a crystal ball any more than I can.

John Redwood: I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) and others, having listened to the Minister's response. There is a way for the Committee to distinguish between the visiting American, who is changing planes in Heathrow and the foreign resident, who is paying utility bills and has an address in the United Kingdom.
	Clause 4 makes it clear that the Bill is designed to regulate and control the conduct of people in foreign countries as well as at home. On this occasion, it makes a lot of sense to assert that extraterritorial jurisdiction. Most hon. Members, the Minister and I wish to see an end to this type of munition and we wish to use any reasonable legal power we can take to pursue that aim. I think it makes sense, as the Minister recommends, to assert that we need to control conduct abroad as well as at home. That confronts us, however, with the real dilemma that my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury raised-that it would be grossly unfair if two people resident in the UK went off and committed a crime under this legislation in a foreign country, yet only one of them could be prosecuted because only one met the rather tight definitions for prosecution in the Bill while the other one, as the neighbour, got off scot-free. That person, as the neighbour, is clearly in a different category from the American in transit, whom the Minister-I think understandably-wishes to exempt from the extraterritorial jurisdiction. I hope that the Minister will think again.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury suggests striking out the provision in subsection (3). We need something in there to make it clear who is being governed by the legislation, but it should be broader than under subsection (3)(a), (b) and (c) in order to capture the hard cases that the Minister has not dealt with.

Chris Bryant: I am at liberty not to give way again, I'm afraid. The hon. Gentleman has now made me lose my direction of travel, so I had better give way to him.

Chris Bryant: I do not accept that because the European arrest warrant works in a very different way and is not at all relevant to this discussion. In fact, the vast majority of European countries-I hope all European countries-will sign up to the convention and will ratify it in fairly short order. France and Germany already have. The nationals of those countries will already be caught by the legislation in those countries, so there is no need for us to legislate to make provision for the French, German or Italian person who is going abroad. That is why I believe that the amendment is unnecessary and why it would be inappropriate to accept it.

William Cash: In referring to Opposition Members, not necessarily of the same party, I think my hon. Friend was fairly careful not to include me. I hope that was not because he was embarrassed to have to agree with me on a matter relating to the European Union, and in this case the European arrest warrant, but he should not be so cautious. Does he not agree that clarification is required, and that the mismatch between the convention and the European Union is a problem? We are within the framework of European law, so the matter requires amendment. Adding words, "notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972" might be a convenient amendment to table on Report.

William Cash: I would like to take up a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) to which I alluded at Second Reading. It struck me at the time that the proposal was a significant loophole that had been devised for specific purposes; the Government's embarrassment at the fact that some of our allies do not agree with them. Poland has been mentioned and I suspect that other allies are deeply worried about this measure. I invite him to tell us which ones they are so that we can get a better idea as to where the difference arise.
	In legislation on criminal offences, it is extremely important to have consistency and for the criminal law to apply equally to all those affected by it. This is not just about the merits of the question of cluster munitions; it is about whether the prohibitions, included in brackets in the Bill's title, apply with equal effect under criminal law to all those against whom it is intended to apply.
	It is clear that United Kingdom nationals might fall within the terms of clause 4. Also, the range of people who have the opportunity of defences arising from clauses 5, 6, 7 and 8 have half a let-out. Clause 9 must be seen in the context of greater convergence of military matters, some of which I disapprove of because I believe in alliances and not locking in under St. Malo agreements and things of that kind. We must bear in mind there is talk of a European army; I do not think that the Minister will disagree with that. Joint operations that apply can be in conflict with matters arising from activities in the Balkans and other parts of the world where cluster munitions are already a recognised problem, which is why the Bill is being introduced in the first place. The object of the Bill is significantly undermined by the degree of exemptions, qualifications and offences and by the European dimension. I know that the Minister does not like to hear these truths, or this realistic analysis.

William Cash: Absolutely. Some people are not familiar with and simply do not know about the St. Malo agreement and the structure of the extremely detailed operational framework that has been created-I invite them to examine it when this debate is over-whereby commanders come from different countries and orders are given by people to others from different nationalities. We must also consider the south Mediterranean military framework. The bottom line here is that on a raft of matters serious interaction takes place between different nationalities, in terms not merely of alliances with separate lines of command, but of the interaction and integration of operational activities involving the line of command of a military operation. As clause 9 states,
	"'military operation' includes any naval or air force operation."
	Thus, we are dealing with all the services, with all the different nationalities and with different criminal criteria, which apply in different countries under the convention, yet the convention itself is interactive with the European Union.
	I have mentioned the European arrest warrant as but one relevant example, and I simply make the point that it is extremely important to bear certain things in mind. The Minister does not listen to the arguments because he has made up his mind that this is going to go through anyway-that is his problem. Although he happens to be rather a nice Minister, he is very assertive about the things in which he believes passionately. The very mention of the word "Europe", or any slight indication that there might be something awry in the drafting of a Bill for which he is responsible and that suggests that there might be something amiss with the European dimension of it, is enough to send him into a spasm.
	There are problems on this issue. I have made my point. I simply repeat that this stand part debate has raised important questions and these things will come home to roost. I do not think that we have yet been given an answer-

William Cash: Indeed the Minister has not spoken about this yet, but I can almost predict that he will take exactly the same line as he has previously and he will do so in the knowledge that barring the tabling of a manuscript amendment, we will have almost no time or opportunity to do anything about it. That is not good law-making.

John Redwood: I am very keen that we do not imperil and put at legal risk our forces when they are doing their duty. I favour the purpose, but I think that we need to know a little more about the extent to which the protection of armed service personnel will get in the way of the noble intention, which is to get rid of this type of munition in our activities. Under this law, does he envisage that British forces will be instructed not to handle these munitions in any combined operation and to leave it to their allies if they are going to use them, or will they be allowed under our instructions to handle these munitions when one of our allies has decided to use them?

William Cash: Is the Minister aware of any of the problems relating to cluster munitions arising in a far more imminent field of operations that we are continually concerned about, namely in Afghanistan? Much of what goes on there is affected by what happened when the Russians were there. Will the Bill apply in relation to the safety of our forces, the line of command and our relationships with other nations within NATO as well as with the United States?

Chris Bryant: The truth is that we would not have the convention if it had not included the interoperability provision. It was a key part of the brokerage that the Prime Minister advanced in Dublin. All the voluntary organisations calling for a cluster munitions convention were delighted that we managed to achieve it, and have, therefore, been supportive of the interoperability clause. As article 21 (2) states:
	"Each State Party shall notify the governments of all States not party to this Convention...and shall promote the norms it establishes."
	In other words, states parties have to make sure that any other states with which they are working understand the basis on which their personnel will be engaged. Yes, the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) is completely right to say that we have to make sure there is clear guidance for personnel, so they know exactly what they can and cannot do. That is already in hand. Consequently, Sir Alan, I very much hope that the clause will stand part.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
	 Clauses 10 to 15 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

John Redwood: We are rushing through these clauses, so it would be helpful if the Minister explained why so many of them relate to premises in the United Kingdom and what the position would be if the weapons were overseas. We have already discussed-briefly-the fact that many of the cases that might arise under the legislation could do so as a result of events that take place outside our country, but that relate to British nationals. What powers, if any, are there to establish the nature of the crime if it takes place outside the UK?

Chris Bryant: We do not seek to introduce new powers in British legislation for us to have access to buildings and properties in other parts of the world. Other countries would probably declare our power to do so rather ultra vires.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Clause 16 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
	 Clauses 17 to 20 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Chris Bryant: I am not sure what charge, allegation or accusation was implicit in the comments of the extremely charming, assertive, aggressive, but usually wrong hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash).
	The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) is right to say that we need to make sure that it is possible to investigate. Of necessity, in other jurisdictions in times of war, that will be a complicated process because there will be many different actors involved-that is to say, many different countries will potentially be involved, some of which will be states parties and some of which will not. That is why, when the convention was being drawn up, we were keen to make sure that the requirement was included-that it was not just a matter of an individual country signing up, but that it had to commit itself to trying to make sure that the rest of the world abandoned cluster munitions as well.
	It is obviously difficult for us to advance that argument in jurisdictions which have not ratified the treaty, have no intention of doing so and are determined to use cluster munitions indefinitely. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the situation overseas. We have jurisdiction over some overseas territories, which we may debate later. There we are keen to advance, in the same way as in the United Kingdom, but that is subject to the constitutional arrangement that we have with each of the overseas territories.
	In this context, I do not think there is a genuine peril. It is difficult for us to announce legislation that has effect in Afghanistan, except in so far as it affects British nationals.

William Cash: When we are dealing with questions of evidence, we have to admit that there is not only the question of the arrest warrant, which I have already mentioned, but the evidence warrant directive. That has raised many problems. I have served on the European Scrutiny Committee now for 26 years. Over that time I have seen many problems which, when they were first identified, were considered fantasy for the future, but they have come true. Does the Minister accept that there are serious problems with the clause? The question of evidence and the power to search in relation to these matters, with the legal uncertainty that we have established in Committee, are aspects that he will have to examine carefully.

Chris Bryant: My hon. Friend is a splendid chap, but I think he missed the debate on clause 9, which we have already decided will stand part of the Bill, and which lays all that out pretty clearly. He is absolutely right to highlight the issue, but I am afraid that he has missed that particular part of this boat.
	Without further ado, I hope that clause 21 will stand part of the Bill.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Clause 21 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
	 Clause 22 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

William Cash: Just by looking at the clause, I note that its origins and inherent problems clearly involve questions of terrorism, because it deals with section 18 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, which applies to matters that are dealt with under the Bill. Subsection (2) also deals with section 17 of the 2001 Act, and there are very big problems. The Minister will understand what I am saying, because many issues that arise in relation to cluster munitions in Afghanistan, for example, are affected by activities on the boundary between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Furthermore, it so happens that there are Afghanistan matters relating to fundamentalists, who also have operations that could and, as far as the intelligence services are concerned, certainly will have implications for the United Kingdom.
	There is a question that we need to bear in mind, therefore, but I shall not go any further than this at the moment. The clause states:
	"(1) This section applies to information if-
	(a) it was obtained under, or in connection with anything done under, this Act or the Convention, and
	(b) it relates to a particular business or other activity carried on by any person."
	There are qualifications about disclosure and the exceptions to that disclosure; again, there is an issue about the seriousness of the offence in question; and there is also the context of the uncertainty that, I believe, the Bill itself creates.
	I understand the objectives and, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), I happen to support the Bill. It has good intentions, but the Minister is making a discovery or, at any rate, will do so, because he has been rather impervious to the arguments to this afternoon. I understand why: he has nowhere to go and is in a cul-de-sac. I simply make the point that although he puts forward a series of assertions that, "The Opposition are wrong and, in particular, the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) is wrong," it does not alter the fact that he cannot answer the questions and there is no time in which to do so. I understand the dilemma and the problem, but we will simply watch the clock tick and see whether in due course some of those issues arise.
	The Minister has had to make an acknowledgement in the course of these proceedings. He started out by suggesting that any opposition was all nonsense and nothing in anything that anyone would say would make any substantial difference, but the Liberal Democrats, my Front Benchers, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham, the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and I have all been raising issues, not just to be difficult, but because there is uncertainty.
	The uncertainty is inherent in the mismatch between the convention; the European Union; British domestic law; the whole question of the interaction of criminal activities, international operations, alliances, and command and control; and the fact that people who will get caught up in this are those whom we least want to get caught up-in particular, soldiers on the ground. This is not just about some kind of theoretical exercise, and it is not even about land mines: it is about cluster munitions, which are part and parcel of tactical weaponry that has been used and that some countries intend to continue using. When British soldiers, who should be our main concern, are given orders, or when such information is made available, they will get caught up in this complex web of legal conduct.
	Is the Minister able to tell us that very clear guidance will be given, in a manual, for the services-not only the Army but the Navy and the Air Force? However persistent and tenacious I may be on this subject, my prime concern is to protect the British soldier, and the Minister has an obligation to tell us that there will be a manual that accurately describes the relative responsibilities and duties in the very complex web of military operations that will arise from this legislation.

Chris Bryant: I am afraid that that has nothing to do with clause 23, which is about the disclosure of information. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say-I have tried to make this point a couple of times now, and I will take a third stab at it-that there have to be clear and unambiguous guidelines for British personnel. Those guidelines have to be available not only to our personnel, so that they fully understand the position that they are in and what they can and cannot do, but to forces of other nationalities with whom we are operating.
	As I said earlier-I think my hon. Friend missed it-it is right that we should ensure that where British personnel have exclusive control over what munitions are used, they do not seek the use of cluster munitions. However, it would not be right for British troops to refuse to use an American aeroplane in Afghanistan, for instance, because they knew that it had been or might be used for cluster munitions at some point. That is a clear distinction that is laid down in the convention and the Bill, although not in clause 23, which I hope will stand part of the Bill.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Clause 23 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Chris Bryant: I hope that you meant that the other way round, Mrs. Heal, but anyway, now that we have cleared that up, the hon. Member for Stone is absolutely right to say that the issues are complex. I have never wanted to question the fact that the application of the measures and their inter-operability is complex, which is why I have had discussions with the Attorney-General. We would want to prosecute wherever we can.
	I should just say that the hon. Member for Stone made one inadvertent mistake. He said that using a cluster munition and aiding and abetting are two different offences, but they are actually the same under clause 2.

Mark Durkan: I thank the Minister for giving way; he is very generous-and creative.
	Other hon. Members have referred to the possible impact of the measures on members of the armed forces. Of course, businesses and firms that conduct activity that is questionable under both the convention and the Bill will also be affected. The Minister stated that he had discussed that with the Attorney-General and that the Government are determined that prosecutions would take place where possible. Does the issue of public interest arise? Is there a possibility that prosecutions of firms under the Bill will be stayed because the Prime Minister or someone else intervenes owing to so-called public interest considerations, as in the case of the Serious Fraud Office investigation of BAE Systems?

Chris Bryant: The Attorney-General's role is different from that of a politician. A politician might come up with all sorts of arguments for what they want, but the Attorney-General will decide on the basis of law whether she wants to proceed with an individual prosecution. I do not think that my hon. Friend expects me to state on her behalf when she will and will not give her consent.
	As I said, we take our commitments under the convention extremely seriously, and we want to ensure that cluster munitions become a thing of the past. That means that investigations into companies that are thought to be flouting the law could begin-if so, we would expect full compliance as quickly as possible. I very much hope that clause 24 stands part of the Bill.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Clause 24 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
	 Clauses 25 to 28 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

William Cash: Obviously, I agree with what my hon. Friend has said, but I would simply add a point. He refers to a Committee upstairs, but having sat on the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments, I know exactly what happens; it is really a kind of dose of salts. I do not want to be disrespectful to the Committee, but when I was on it, I was concerned at the fact that a lot of statutory instruments went through rather easily. We are dealing with a statutory instrument that would involve the modification of the Bill. That statutory instrument is subject to the affirmative procedure, but that in itself is no safeguard.
	My hon. Friend is right in what he said. If the Bill were modified, there would be issues in the light of the complexities that the Minister now accepts are inherent in the Bill, the interaction of alliances, conventions, different jurisdictions, kinds of law and judicial attitudes, and the whole question of responsibility for control and command. There are also questions that go outside the normal courts; for example, we have not mentioned courts martial at all, but that issue could arise in the context of the matters that we are discussing. I wonder whether the Attorney-General might not be in some difficulty in that respect.
	We are talking about serious questions and offences with substantial penalties. Subsection (1) says:
	"The Secretary of State may by order...make such modifications"-
	this is the crucial set of words-
	"as the Secretary of State considers necessary or desirable to give effect to any amendment of the Convention made in pursuance of the...Convention."
	As for the words "considers necessary or desirable", we have been through that issue before. Anyone who has had experience of this House over a period of time, and any lawyer, knows that the phrase is extremely wide and virtually unchallengeable. The phrase used to be "in the opinion of"; now, it is "considers necessary or desirable", which is very wide.
	The clause goes on to say:
	"An order under subsection (1) may also make... modifications of any other enactment (whenever passed or made)",
	including retrospectively,
	"as the Secretary of State considers necessary or desirable"-
	there are those words again. That is worse than a Henry VIII provision; it is carte blanche. I would not particularly have wanted such a provision to have applied even in Henry VIII's reign; it might have been applied not merely to his wives, but anyone else in the entourage, because the provision catches everybody. Henry VIII would have had a field day with it.
	Despite the fact that the statutory instrument is subject to the affirmative procedure-here I look to the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), with whom I seem to have been having quite a dialogue over the past few days, both in the Chamber and outside it-"enactment" is specifically defined, and not by reference to the interpretation Act. For the purposes of the provision,
	"In this section...'enactment' means...(a) an Act of Parliament,
	(b) an Act of the Scottish Parliament,
	(c) a Measure or Act of the National Assembly for Wales, or
	(d) Northern Ireland legislation".
	In terms of the powers conferred,
	"a 'modification' includes an addition, repeal or revocation."
	I invite the hon. Gentleman to consider that, because as a distinguished member of the Northern Ireland legislature, he will know-as will others who discussed Northern Irish questions relating to justice, criminal law and policing yesterday-that however familiar people have got with totally undesirable legislation that legislates in order to legislate further, and to undo legislation, both retrospectively and in the future, that that is a very bad way to go about handing out sentences, with or without the consent of the Attorney-General, to our soldiers on the ground.
	We are talking about a very severe penalty of 14 years. It would be different if we were talking about a minor piece of legislation. I do not know what went on in other parts of the precincts of Parliament and in the other House, but the consideration that we are giving to the Bill today, at rather short notice and on a fairly tight programme, ought to reflect the seriousness of the offence that is being imposed. As the hon. Member for Foyle rightly indicated, those affected could be bodies corporate, businesses or partnerships. I have insisted on the point about the effect on the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, or on duty in Bosnia, where there are a lot of cluster munitions.
	There are the problems of the exceptions that arise by virtue of the fact that a fairly substantial number of people have not signed up to the convention. We also have difficulties in relation to our allies, some of whom would not even supply us with ammunition during the Iraq war. I do not regard them as being much use. That is a serious matter. In addition, there are a significant number of people who are supposed to be engaged in Afghanistan with us. We have soldiers dying daily in Sangin and Helmand, and other countries are simply not taking an active part; that is a serious problem.
	The cluster munitions provisions affect our operations on the ground in Afghanistan. In all fairness, I know that the Minister recognises that. He also knows that there are serious penalties in the Bill. The powers in the clause to modify the Act in such an extremely wide manner, over a very wide and complicated landscape, are completely unwarranted. I am sure that the Whip on duty will listen to this-oh, there is no Whip here. I am not a Whip, or in the slightest degree interested in being a Whip, but I would have thought that we ought to vote against the provision, because it goes too wide on too serious a matter-a matter that has a serious implication for our armed services.

Mark Durkan: The hon. Gentleman raised concerns about the clause, and touched on possible implications for devolved interests, and specifically Northern Ireland, which is the area of concern to me.
	I hope that the Minister, when he replies, can offer some assurance on a number of matters. First, I want to stress that those of us who strongly support the Bill want to see within it provision to ensure that, as the convention changes, modifications can be made to the Bill. Clearly, this is a significant convention; it is the most significant disarmament treaty for a decade-hopefully, not the most significant for the decade to come, but it might be. However, if it is changed, and if it grows, obviously we want legislation here to be able to track and reflect that. So providing some instrument for ready and reliable modification is a matter of sensible and good intent on the part of the Government.
	To that extent, and if that is the motivation behind the clause, I am comfortable with it. However, concerns arise about how the clause is then used. As the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) said, it is premised on what the Secretary of State "considers necessary or desirable" to give effect to any amendment made to the convention. In the first instance, two questions arise: first, the clause gives the Secretary of State the power to so modify the Bill. We know that there have been changes to various other international conventions that many hon. Members have lobbied to have reflected in law here, only to find that the Government, for whatever reason, have been dilatory in doing so or have decided that they do not think it necessary or desirable to reflect changes to conventions enacted elsewhere in the law here. So, if the Secretary of State chooses not to make such a modification, it is possible in any other way for House to make such modifications?
	Secondly, what happens if the Secretary of State uses a change in the convention not just to introduce a change to the Act that everyone else agrees is necessary and sensible, but to bring forward other changes that many people might not agree are necessary and uses the provision as a cover for various other modifications that would be equivalent to a derogation from the convention?

Mark Durkan: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that relevant observation, although I am not sure that we can await the consideration of the Attorney-General, given the exigencies of the situation today. However, I would like the Minister to tell us just how wide the interpretative sweep available to the Secretary of State is. What he may consider necessary or desirable might either fall well short of what is actually required to match changes to the convention or exceed them in a number of ways. The Secretary of State may use the contrivance of changes in pursuance of changes to the convention to water down other aspects of the Bill.
	The big problem is that although the House might feel it all very well to give the Secretary of State the power to so change legislation of this House, should he also have the power of fiat to change the legislation of other Assemblies and Parliaments in relation to any enactment? For instance, there is no reference to legislative consent motions or anything else. It might be that future changes to the convention put in place particular obligations and restrictions on what Governments do with, or for, companies that might, or might not, have been involved in contraventions of the ban on cluster munitions.

Chris Bryant: I confess that I am not a big fan of the clause. I do not generally like such clauses, and I think that it is better, when one can, to ensure that we proceed with primary legislation. However, in relation to a convention such as the one on cluster munitions, which contains express provisions for amendment, and when such a convention is not yet binding on the whole world and recognises, at its very core, that some countries will be state parties and others will not, it is important that we have some means of amendment.
	It is always better, of course, to make amendments through primary legislation, but my difficulty is that we are taking through this Bill later than I would have liked. It is a shame that, although we were one of the frontrunners in moving forward the debate on cluster munitions, we have ended up outside the first 30 countries to ratify the convention. That is because there will always be a pretty hefty parliamentary work load. The legislation has been ready for some time, but it has taken a while to find a slot in the parliamentary programme-now, who knows what will happen to programming after the general election? The difficulty is, I suggest, that if we insisted on primary legislation for any amendment to the convention, there would likely be a delay in getting it on to the statute book.

Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman is attempting orally to table an amendment, but unfortunately it has not been tabled- [ Interruption. ] Now he is asking me to table it, but I do not want the amendment that he has suggested. If he had really wanted us to debate it, he might have tabled it himself. Earlier, he was trying to take the Attorney-General out of the equation; now, he seems to want to put her in, but at a different point- [ Interruption. ] I understand, but I am afraid that I must-assertively and, I hope, charmingly-disagree with him on this point.  [ Interruption. ] My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South (Mr. Harris) has finally woken up-

Chris Bryant: He says that he has just arrived, but he has been here for some time. He has clearly given up on texting me, however-and, no, I am not going to karaoke this evening!
	The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) asked for some assurances on how we would proceed with this provision. Let me make it clear that, if there were to be substantial changes, I think that there should be primary legislation. If there were to be changes that directly affected any of the devolved Administrations, there should be proper consultation with them and a proper process should be undergone, rather than some kind of fiat coming down from the Secretary of State. With those assurances, I hope that we can agree that clause 29 should stand part of the Bill.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Clause 29 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
	 Clauses 30 and 31 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

The First Deputy Chairman: Order. May I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are discussing amendment No. 6? Perhaps his remarks could be directed to that.

Edward Davey: I have great sympathy with the new clause and I hope that the Minister will explain that it is not needed. If it were needed, I would encourage the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) to push it to a vote. I suspect that it is not needed because, as I understand it, signing the convention with respect to the commitment to get rid of the stockpiles is legally binding on the Government. However, the rest of the Bill contains those items that the Government must put into domestic law to make it legally binding on others who might commit an offence, so the convention has the force of law on Her Majesty's Government. Therefore, I do not think the new clause is needed but I shall be interested to hear what the Minister says.

William Cash: I also hope that the provision is not necessary. Without wanting to be too pedantic-or precise, to put it another way-the expression
	"held under United Kingdom jurisdiction"
	in the new clause might be better expressed as "within UK jurisdiction". Munitions are held in the British overseas territories-Diego Garcia being a good example. To say that these are held under United Kingdom jurisdiction is not correct; it is within UK jurisdiction but not held under UK jurisdiction. I do not want to criticise my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) but I want to perform my function, which is to try to elucidate. There is a problem but it can be overcome; the Minister can do so with assurances that the intentions behind the measure will be implemented.

David Lidington: I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation and, in particular, for the assurance that article 7 of the convention, in itself, provides a legally binding instrument to govern what the United Kingdom has to do in respect of stockpiles. In view of those assurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
	 Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
	 Schedule s 1 to 3 agreed to.
	 The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.
	 Bill, as amended, reported.
	 Third Reading

Chris Bryant: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
	I hope that all hon. Members will agree that this is an important piece of legislation. Interestingly, the tone of this debate has been very different from that of any debate we would have had about such a matter a mere four, five or six years ago. Then, people would have argued much more forcefully for retaining cluster munitions as an essential tool of the trade necessary to our armed forces. The facts that have emerged over the past few years have changed people's minds: the fact that a third of those most affected by cluster munitions have been children; the fact that thousands of people are killed by these weapons not only in the process of war, but in many cases a long time after the war because cluster submunitions lie around unexploded; and the fact that at least 60 per cent. of those who have been killed or maimed were not in the field of combat but were engaged in their ordinary daily business. Those things have made many people-those of a military disposition or career, as well as those who have worked for non-governmental organisations-conscious of the fact that we needed to change how we engage with this issue.
	I pay tribute to the Norwegian Government, who were key in asserting the Oslo declaration and trying to persuade everybody to come forward with the convention; to the Irish Government, who brought together the diplomatic conference in Dublin; and to our own Prime Minister, who played a specific role in brokering a deal that meant that it was possible for the convention to be agreed. As we have discussed this afternoon, the Bill has come about in large measure because of the necessity to provide legal certainty for the personnel of armed forces that have decided not to use cluster munitions who may be operating alongside personnel from countries that have not taken that decision. I very much hope that we will be able to make progress as swiftly as possible and that all countries-certainly all our allies-will sign up to and ratify the convention.
	I am grateful for the work that has been done on this Bill by people in the Foreign Office who are not often involved in introducing legislation. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), who has conducted the debate in a spirit of fair-minded probing, as of course have all hon. Members. I very much hope that we will be able to agree to give the Bill its Third Reading.

David Lidington: Conservative Members are happy to welcome the Bill on to the statute book. As the Minister fairly pointed out, this debate would previously have been conducted on different terms by both his Front-Bench team and mine. There is now much greater parliamentary and public recognition of the appalling number of casualties that cluster weapons inflict, mostly to civilians and often to children. What has also changed is that our armed forces and the Ministry of Defence have felt able to accommodate a ban on cluster munitions without significantly impairing the effectiveness of our defence-preparedness. The Bill's provisions to protect the position of British servicemen and women engaged on joint operations with allied countries that have yet to ratify the convention on cluster munitions are particularly important.
	We currently devote a great deal of time and attention to weapons proliferation issues. We also debate the rising threat of nuclear proliferation and chemical and biological risks, the need for progress to be made in tackling the trade in small arms and the very slow progress being made towards those objectives. Therefore, it is good that this evening we are able to mark a small step towards ridding the world of at least one particularly unpleasant category of lethal weapon.

Edward Davey: At the moment, British politics, and this place in particular, is held in low regard by the public. We are about to enter a period when partisan politics will be at its greatest, because it will be election time. This Bill and today's debate have shown this Parliament at its best and have shown how parties can work together to secure things about which people out there have campaigned. This measure is a response to the ordinary people who have written to MPs in this country-and other countries, to be fair-arguing for a change in the law in order to ban such weapons. It is a welcome move for that reason in itself.
	The substance of the Bill is a fantastic development. We are leading the way. This country, working with Norway, Ireland and the 30 other countries that have now signed and ratified the convention, are leading the way to ridding the world of these appalling weapons-weapons that have caused such destruction and have served almost no military purpose. Let us be absolutely clear: all the evidence, from all the groups that have considered and studied this matter, shows that these weapons achieve almost nothing militarily. The vast majority of people who have been killed by these weapons-I have seen figures ranging from 85 to 98 per cent.-have been civilians. As the Minister rightly said, these weapons leave a legacy that lasts for years and that might still be with us for decades to come.
	I hope that, having passed this legislation, Britain will now do two things. I hope that we will ensure that where our forces have used cluster munitions we take responsibility for clearing them up and ensure that they are not left littering the farms and lands of other countries. I also hope that we will give further leadership on the convention, as many countries and friends across the world have yet to sign the convention. This Bill is a first step, and we have taken it, but we have to go further. Having listened to and read the Minister's speeches, I know that he is committed to doing just that. He has shown good leadership in wanting to use our diplomatic good offices to push that aim with our friends and allies. I hope and believe that that wish is shared across all the parties. We have a responsibility now to move on from this good legislation and to give that global leadership. I strongly support the Bill.

Consideration of Bill, not amended in the Public Bill Committee
	 Third Reading

Henry Bellingham: I join the Minister in paying tribute to the Law Commission for coming up with this Bill under the new, expedited procedure. Let me also declare an interest as a former practising barrister. I want to put on record my gratitude to the Minister for the way in which she has handled not only this Bill but many others, as this might be my last opportunity to thank her personally from the Dispatch Box for her work and to wish her well for the future. I understand that she will be in charge of the Department during the Dissolution period, after which it could fall to another party to take over from her. That is the Conservatives' hope, but we wish her well for the future anyway and we hope very much that during those four weeks or so she does not cause any major problems, but makes sure that there is a steady hand on the tiller.
	As the Minister has pointed out, the Bill is part of the new, expedited procedure for bringing through Parliament Law Commission Bills that command widespread consensus and support. It follows in the footsteps of the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 2009-complex legislation that went through the House with the minimum of fuss. The Bill is important because it builds on the Third Parties (Rights against Insurers) Act 1930, which overturned the original, common law privity of contract doctrine, which stated clearly that no insurance liability was directly enforceable by a third party against an insurer. Real problems accrued as a result of that well-established principle, and the introduction of the 1930 Act reflected how the economy and society were moving on, not least with the proliferation of cars on the roads. A number of insured people were, sadly, getting killed, and third parties had to take over those insured rights against insurance companies.
	It is not surprising that there have been one or two problems with the 1930 Act, as 80 years have intervened since then, in which time there have been many changes to our economy and legal system. If the insured were a dissolved company that had been struck off the register, the third party had to restore it to the register in order to mount a successful claim. That took time and cost money, and there was no need for that to happen. That is one of several key issues that the Bill addresses. All of the key changes are very straightforward and command widespread support. It was noticeable, during the consultation process, that people in all parts of the industry, including practitioners and other interested parties, spoke with one voice. It is quite a phenomenon to have everyone singing from exactly the same hymn sheet.
	I should like to know from the Minister what lessons have been learned from the new procedure. The Bill was first mooted as long ago as 1998, in a Law Commission report, but it has taken 12 years to come before the House in its present form. I hope that it will be on the statute book very soon. How much quicker could that progress have been made if we had had in place the new procedures that were brought in under the Law Commission Act 2009 for expediting such Bills through Parliament? Could we have got it through Parliament in a few years or less?
	The Minister mentioned in a letter that she sent to me after our Committee proceedings that her Department would soon lay before the House a new protocol under the Law Commission Act 2009. Will she tell us whether it will be laid before Dissolution? I want to press her on an issue that I raised in Committee that she did not mention in her letter to me of 15 March, which refers to the Law Commission paper, "Insurance Contract Law: Misrepresentation, Non-Disclosure and Breach of Warranty by the Insured". That important report will give rise to legislation that could, to some extent, be allied to parts of this Bill, and I should like to know what happened to that report and whether a Bill will be coming forward in the near future.
	The Bill is small but important. It builds on the 1930 Act, as I have said, and it will help a number of our constituents at times when their lives have become a complete misery because of the complexity of the existing law. It will take a small step towards alleviating that misery, and that is why the Conservatives are very pleased to support it.

David Heath: The Bill is not unimportant and neither is it lacking in complexity, but it is very welcome and, I hope, lacking in political controversy. It was therefore an extremely good candidate for the accelerated procedure that was used. We in this place cannot subcontract our scrutiny of legislation, but we can subcontract much of the hard work on its preparation and on the technical issues that must be addressed. We could put such work in no safer hands than the Law Commission, which has done an extremely good job in that regard and on many other matters that have come before us.
	I hope that a lot more of the Law Commission's backlog of recommendations will be put through a similar procedure in short order. The Lord Chancellor indicated recently that he regrets the fact that there is still a backlog and that there has been no opportunity to put more before the House. It is time we did so, because it is pointless for such an extremely learned and capable organisation to make recommendations if we cannot find the time to legislate properly.
	I conclude by noting that the Minister and I have served on many Bills over recent years. I have not always agreed with every position she has taken, and she has not always agreed with every position I have taken, but I have enormous respect for the work she has done and I thank her on behalf of the House for the efforts she has put into the Ministry. I really hope that during the period when she is in charge nothing happens to make her regret her current position.
	I hope the Bill can now pass.

Christopher Chope: I spoke against this Bill on Second Reading, albeit quite briefly, and my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) spoke against it at greater length. Unfortunately, he is not here this evening because he is with a school party visiting the holocaust memorials in Germany. However, I have been able to communicate with him today by telephone, and I know that he shares my reservations about the financial aspect of the Bill, which is what the resolution deals with-the expenditure of more taxpayers' money.
	It is ironic that on the eve of the Budget, when the Chancellor will doubtless reveal that we are seriously in the red as a country and will have to reduce expenditure and increase taxes, we can be thinking of allowing such a provision to go through, perhaps unopposed, on the basis that it is a good idea. Up and down the country, there are families who are saying, "This is desirable, and we'd like to do it, but we can't afford it." When are we going to hear any Front Bencher say, "It may be desirable, and we are in favour of it, but we just can't afford it"? I am contributing to this debate in the hope that in the wind-ups the Minister will explain why, when the Government are in such a parlous position in relation to the economy, they think that the expenditure of money on this proposition is worth while and should go ahead irrespective of whether it can be afforded.
	Clause 11(1) says:
	"The OFT must directly fund all the costs associated with the Ombudsman."
	One way of avoiding my criticisms of the Bill, certainly as regards its finances, would be to say that the Office of Fair Trading would have to make compensatory savings for any expenditure incurred as a result of its provisions. As I understand it, that is the position that my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) put forward during the Second Reading debate when he said that he wanted a much leaner and meaner arrangement for dealing with this within the OFT itself. Obviously, if the OFT were able to find compensatory savings, there would not be any additional expenditure for the taxpayer as a result of the Bill, and this money resolution might not be necessary.
	I took the liberty of having a peek at the OFT's annual report and resource accounts for the last financial year, and I saw that it had a net operating cost of some £56 million. One might have thought that it might be able to find some savings from within that enormous sum of expenditure. I then looked to see whether any of those savings might come from a different remuneration deal for the key players in this organisation, and I saw that last the year its chief executive was paid in the salary range of £270,000 to £275,000 and its chairman was paid in the salary range of £170,000 to £175,000. It should not be beyond the wit of the OFT to find some savings to enable the Bill to be carried through without additional cost to the taxpayer.
	The Ways and Means motion, which we will discuss shortly, deals with what I think is even worse than a direct imposition on the taxpayer-a back-handed way of forcing up the prices of goods in the supermarkets through a levy on grocery operators. In the meantime, it is for the Government to assert why they believe that this measure is affordable and to explain more than the Minister has done so far what their intentions are in relation to the future passage of the Bill through this House and the other place. It is not satisfactory to say that there is no more time available for private Members' business, as there could have been if the amendment moved so ably earlier on by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone)-I am pleased to see him in his place-had been accepted. That would have made it possible to have had debates on private Members' business this coming Friday, but that was ruled out by the Government. I hope that in winding up this short debate the Minister will at least tell us whether he has plans for the Bill to proceed with a Report stage and Third Reading in this House before Dissolution.

Peter Bone: Was my hon. Friend surprised by the speed with which the Minister moved the resolution? [Hon. Members: "You missed it!"] That is the point-I missed it because he was so speedy. Is the crux of my hon. Friend's argument that there is no need for this resolution because savings could be made elsewhere?

Albert Owen: I am pleased to follow, and agree with, the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash)-as the Member in charge of the Bill, I believe that it is has a lot of merit. We had an honest and open debate about it, in which the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) took part and tried to muster support against it but failed miserably. The only supporter that he had is in Germany today-he was unable even to get him into this country to oppose the Bill.
	I support the money resolution. We need to move forward, and I believe that we are building a strong consensus. The hon. Member for Christchurch can name only the British Retail Consortium to support his point, and only senior members of that. Many of its individual members support the Bill. I believe that the supermarkets will come on board and the Bill will be the way forward, but it does need some start-up costs.

Albert Owen: I am certainly working through the procedures, and that is why we are here tonight. The Government have agreed to give the Bill time, and I will try to get it into Committee on the 30th of this month if the resolution is passed. I hope we can move forward as quickly as possible.
	The principle of the Bill is sound. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) said, we need some start-up costs to get the scheme going. I describe the Bill and the grocery market as a game of rugby. We need to have a referee, and that referee needs help and support. The money resolution will provide that.

Elfyn Llwyd: In fact, the £5 million to which the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) referred is a minuscule proportion of the rates advantage that large shops have over small retailers. It is a drop in the ocean-there is no argument about that.

Christopher Chope: Again, I find myself almost in a minority of one, but that will not inhibit me in saying what I am going to say, because I know that what I say is echoed by Sainsbury's and Tesco and a whole lot of major supermarkets. Why are they major supermarkets? Because they have the confidence of their customers and they deliver good quality at keen prices. The supermarket market is very active, with firms coming and going depending on how they perform. Our successful supermarkets are the ones that operate in favour of the consumer, on behalf of whom I speak unapologetically-other hon. Members have spoken on behalf of the producers.

Christopher Chope: I never said that I thought the Bill had merits-one of my hon. Friends did. If the hon. Gentleman looked at the report of my speech on Second Reading, he would see that I do not find any merit in the Bill.
	I am sure that the problem should and could be addressed by the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission. I do not think that the Bill is the solution.
	In particular, what I do not like about the aspect of the Bill that we are discussing is the fact that the measure will be financed by a levy on the supermarkets. That levy will be of unlimited extent, as the Minister for Regional Economic Development and Co-ordination said when she referred to the issue on Second Reading. She also said:
	"We are determined not to place any unnecessary costs on business, particularly in a period of economic difficulty. That is one of the reasons why we are consulting on the scope, scale and responsibilities of the new ombudsman. We want to make sure that we get this right."-[ Official Report, 5 March 2010; Vol. 506, c. 1164.]
	The Government have got the cart before the horse: they should have consulted and thought through the issue before the legislation was brought forward. It should have been sorted out before the Ways and Means motion was brought before us. Under the Bill, if it ever becomes law, there will be no limit to the amount of money that could be spent by the ombudsman, and therefore to the costs that could be imposed on supermarkets and their customers.

Albert Owen: The hon. Gentleman is slightly misrepresenting the formula, which says, from memory, that each of the 11 large supermarkets will contribute 0.005 per cent. of its turnover under the scheme. Those that will pay the most are those that are referred to the ombudsman the most. All those supermarkets accept the code of practice, so they have nothing to fear unless they breach contracts or are taken up by the ombudsman. The hon. Gentleman is, I feel, misleading the consumer when he says he thinks that there will be additional costs placed on them, or on the goods. The good supermarkets will take that on board, and we will see fair trading.

Elfyn Llwyd: The hon. Gentleman is right. Some years ago, I went to see Lord Bach to complain about the situation. Although I had enough evidence, I did not have names and addresses of suppliers, because they were afraid to supply them. He said, "If you come back with some suppliers who are prepared to stand up and be counted, we can do something." As I said, however, the point is that at least they are getting some form of cash flow that is keeping them just above the water. That is not the basis on which to look forward-

Kevin Brennan: I am glad that in calling the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) to order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you repeated the maxim of the late great Michael Foot, "He can rat, but he can't re-rat."
	The Ways and Means motion, which is what we are debating, even though we have ranged quite widely, is designed to demonstrate how the ombudsman could be funded by a levy on industry. It has wide support across the House. It will be reasonable and proportionate and it will bring value to producers and consumers. That is why I commend it to the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.

Christine Russell: I am grateful for the opportunity to present a public petition, which is signed by a large number of my constituents in the City of Chester who object to Cheshire West and Chester council's lack of public consultation with local people on the decision to sell county hall and move the council offices to the new headquarters building. The petition was collected by a constituent of mine. It states:
	Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House refer our petition to the relevant Select Committee for Communities and Local Government or other body as you deem appropriate requesting that the body review the effectiveness of the said legislation and guidance concerned with the duty to involve provided by this House with reference to the way local authorities are interpreting and operating that legislation and guidance in the public interest and with regard to our legislated rights.
	And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.
	 Following is the full text of the petition:
	 [The Humble Petition of the people of Chester in the County of Cheshire being electors of the Local Authority of Cheshire West and Chester,
	 Sheweth, that in the process of our new Local Authority of Cheshire West and Chester planning the disposal of its Chester County Hall in a restricted preferential sale to Chester University, and of making a costly move of its Chester headquarters, on a leasehold agreement, to the new so called 'HQ Building' beside Chester racecourse, the local community has found itself excluded throughout from any meaningful consultation over the plan with Council; and has additionally been denied essential information prior to the completion of the scheme, and subsequent to it, that we are certain we should have been entitled to know.
	 Sheweth,  that this failure by our local authority to consult with its people over this planning matter is in conflict with the legislative requirements and advisory guidance issued by Parliament in the form of, for example, the publication 'Communities in Control-real people, real power', and the 'Action for Empowerment' and 'Duty to Involve' white papers stating a statutory duty for all councils to engage fully and from an early stage with the public over such matters; and that this behaviour towards its public by Cheshire West and Chester Council is, in addition, in conflict with its own published 'Statement of Community Involvement' and the operative interim and draft forms of its 'Sustainable Community Strategy'.
	 Sheweth ,  in addition the validity of this most respectful submission by dutifully reminding this House of the relevance of and of the UK's commitment as a full signatory to the 'European Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making, and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters'; this generally being known as 'The Arhus Agreement'.
	 Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House refer our petition to the relevant Select Committee for Communities and Local Government or other body as you deem appropriate requesting that the body review the effectiveness of the said legislation and guidance concerned with the duty to involve provided by this House with reference to the way local authorities are interpreting and operating that legislation and guidance in the public interest and with regard to our legislated rights.
	 And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c. ]
	[P000766]

Bob Russell: We all know about the curse of binge drinking, and we all know that when alcohol is taken to excess it causes lasting damage to a person's health. What is not so well known-indeed, it seems to be something of a state secret-is the curse of "binge listening" to personal music systems, collectively known as MP3s. MP3s are an invention from the last decade of the 20th century that has taken serious hold in the first decade of the third millennium.
	Every day millions of people plug into MP3s, individual music systems that pump music, often very loud music, straight into the ears of users who are oblivious to the fact that they are destroying their hearing. The figures are staggering. It is estimated that 10 million people in the United Kingdom, and more than 100 million in the European Union, have MP3 systems, which are often generically-but wrongly-described as iPods. On the 453 "bendy bus" travelling to the House of Commons from the Old Kent road at 6.15 this morning, I counted six passengers of the 18 in the section in which I was travelling who were plugged into MP3s.
	It can be said, in blunt terms, that a contemporary 20-year-old serial user of an MP3 will, at the age of 40, have the hearing capacity of someone aged 60. That is the prediction of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People. The RNID, as it is more generally called nowadays, very kindly helped me with the background for my speech. Yet whereas over the years there have been countless health warnings about the consequences of alcohol excess, there are effectively no health warnings about the consequences of the excessive use of MP3 personal music systems.
	Regrettably, the Department of Health has washed its hands of the looming man-made disaster affecting the nation's hearing. It has said that health matters resulting from the use of MP3 personal music systems are not matters for the Department of Health! Bizarrely, in a single written answer provided on 24 June last year in response to five detailed questions that I had tabled about MP3 players, one of which specifically urged the Secretary of State for Health to
	"take steps to increase levels of public awareness of the potential effects on hearing of listening to personal music players at high noise levels",
	the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Lincoln (Gillian Merron), said:
	"The safety and regulation of consumer products, such as personal music players is, within Government, primarily a matter for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills."
	So there we have it: responsibility for health-related hearing impairment caused by MP3s is not a matter for the Department of Health, but a matter for the right hon. Lord Mandelson, First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, and Lord President of the Council. No doubt we must now add to his ever-lengthening title "and Minister for MP3 hearing impairment".
	The Minister of State did graciously go on to add in her written answer:
	"The Department welcomes the report of the European Union's Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks."
	It is good that the European Union is more concerned about this newly identified health risk than seems to be the case with Her Majesty's Government. The Minister's written answer then went on to say:
	"The Department, advised by the Health Protection Agency, keeps under review the risks to health which may be attributed to various kinds of noise."
	She concluded with this rallying cry of inertia and inactivity:
	"The Department has no plans at present for an information campaign on the risks to hearing posed by the use of personal music players."-[ Official Report, 24 June 2009; Vol. 494, c. 1004W.]
	This was not the first time that I had raised my concerns with the Department. I had also tabled parliamentary questions, first in May 2007, and then again in May 2008. On 2 May 2007, I was told that the Department had made no estimate of the number of people using iPods who will suffer hearing impairment as a result. On 6 May 2008, the same Minister, in response to my asking the Secretary of State to commission research into the effects on hearing of the use of personal MP3 players, acknowledged in a written answer that
	"It is already widely understood that playing personal audio equipment too loud can damage your hearing."-[ Official Report, 6 May 2008; Vol. 475, c. 746W.]
	Thus, Mr Speaker, it was recognised two years ago, and no doubt earlier, by the Department of Health that personal musical systems were a potential health problem, but it would appear that, two years later, the Government have failed to take any meaningful action. Interestingly, on the same day, I was called at Health Questions and directly challenged the Secretary of State. This is what I said:
	"Audiologists have expressed concern about the potential hearing impairment brought about by young people wearing personal music centres plugged into their ears. Does the Secretary of State agree that there is a serious likelihood of hearing impairment affecting those young people at a much earlier stage of their lives, and that there should be an inquiry into what action can be taken to prevent the danger of hearing impairment being brought about by those items of social fashion?"
	In his oral response, the Secretary of State, amidst banter-the word "Interruption" appears twice in the  Hansard report-said at one point:
	"I do not think that this issue can be near the top of our agenda, but it does need to be looked at."
	After commenting on other matters relating to music noise, the Secretary of State then concluded with reference to MP3s by saying that
	"yes, I do think that we should look into that issue."-[ Official Report, 6 May 2008; Vol. 475, c. 570.]
	Almost two years later, will the Minister tonight say what action the Department of Health has taken following the promise that the matter would be "looked at"? Will the Minister also advise me when-I hope this has happened-his Department published a report by an ad hoc advisory group that I was told in a written answer on 11 June 2007 had been set up to
	"advise about the effects of environmental noise on health, which includes the risk to hearing from over exposure to loud noise. This group is currently producing a report on these matters, which is due to be published later this year."?-[ Official Report, 11 June 2007; Vol. 461, c. 870W.]
	I had asked the then Secretary of State-remember, this is approaching three years ago-what steps her Department had taken to educate people about the risk to their hearing from over-exposure to loud noise and whether she would make a statement. Almost three years on, the answer to that appears to be little to nothing. Three wasted years; three years in which the hearing of millions of British people has been put at risk because the Government failed to take action on what audiologists were aware was happening, and what the Department of Health must have known was happening, if it was paying attention to this emerging and newly identified health risk. If I knew, the Department-with all its expert advisers-must have known as well.
	I was first alerted to the pending hearing doomsday scenario by two audiologists in my Colchester constituency whom I had gone to see on a totally unrelated topic; the switchover to digital hearing aids. In conversation, they said that personal music systems were already destroying the quality of hearing of many young people. I therefore hope that tonight's debate will focus attention on the serious medical time-bomb which is ticking away, very loudly, and that the Government, and those who manufacture and sell MP3 players, will take swift and effective action to make people aware that, at their current levels, in terms of both excessive usage and excessive sound, people are destroying their hearing quality for the rest of their lives. The cost to the national health service in the years to come will be substantial, and the cost to the quality of life of those with seriously impaired hearing cannot be quantified financially.
	The Royal National Institute for Deaf People-the RNID- Britain's largest charity which seeks to help the nation's estimated 9 million people who are deaf or hard of hearing, has launched a "Don't Lose the Music" campaign, which aims to make sure that people know how and why to protect their hearing while enjoying music. The charity does not want to see the figure of 9 million grow, but it will grow massively as a direct result of MP3 players unless firm action is taken now to deal with the seriousness of the problem. According to figures released by the World Health Organisation, exposure to loud music is the major avoidable cause of permanent hearing loss worldwide. MP3 players are exacerbating the problems on a huge scale. Experts agree that noises over 85 decibels-that is equivalent to a loud alarm clock, heavy traffic or a power drill at close range-will damage hearing over time.
	The RNID has estimated that a high number of people in the UK are at risk of damaging their hearing from "leisure noise"-MP3 players pose a significant risk in that regard. Research conducted by the RNID in 2006-it is believed that the situation has deteriorated since-suggested that 90 per cent. of young people had experienced the first physical signs of hearing loss, which are dull, fuzzy hearing or temporary tinnitus, after a night out.
	MP3 players must not be blamed for all of this-there are other situations where noise causes problems-but that is no excuse not to take effective action to save users of MP3 players from suffering permanent hearing impairment. Astonishingly, I am advised that the regulations dealing with noise at work do not provide protection for consumers, so that gap in the existing legislation needs to be addressed. We also need other regulations or legislation to deal with the health menace from MP3 players. I am told that it is not unusual for the noise level of MP3 music inputted directly into the ears to be greater than what would be legally permitted in a factory environment.
	What does MP3 stand for? I thought I ought to ask, and the answer, which has kindly been provided by the RNID, is as follows:
	"MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on audio players."
	One can understand why it is called MP3.
	I am chairman of the all-party group on noise reduction, which for many years has promoted awareness of noise issues on the advice of the UK Noise Association, and this is not the first time that I have secured a debate relating to noise. On 21 March 2002-eight years ago almost to the day-I had an Adjournment debate headed "Noisy Neighbours". I also wish to draw the House's attention to early-day motion 1154, which I tabled last night and which was published today. It is headed "Government Noise Policy Statement" and records regret
	"that the Noise Policy Statement published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 15 March falls far short of what had been expected and what is required to tackle the increasing levels of noise in society and the range of problems associated with noise, including quality of life and health issues for the people of this country".
	There is clearly a need for a much more determined approach from the Government-a joined-up approach-to tackle noise issues. While the Department of Health has seemingly been very lax in respect of hearing impairment issues relating to MP3 players, both the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Transport have recognised specific serious matters that need to be addressed, and have addressed them. The Ministry of Defence has a defence hearing working group, whose remit is to ensure that military personnel take precautions in protecting their hearing, not just when training or deployed on active service, but in social situations. When I have been on exercises in this country or overseas-I have seen our troops serving in both Iraq and Afghanistan-I have noted the requirement to wear ear plugs and other ear protectors. The Army has produced a training video containing a section-this relates specifically to the title of tonight's debate-on soldiers' social lives and how MP3 players can damage their hearing. I am told that the video refers to hearing loss as being "painless, progressive and permanent". The Army encourages soldiers to embed the culture of valuing their hearing at all times.
	RoSPA-the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents-has informed me that although little hard data are available it is aware that tragedies have occurred where cyclists and pedestrians wearing MP3 players who did not hear the sound of vehicles around them were killed or injured. The society told me:
	"RoSPA's advice is that anyone using an iPod, mobile phone or similar when out walking, jogging or cycling needs to be aware of the risk that they may be 'in a world of their own' and miss the vital clue of an approaching vehicle."
	A second road safety charity, Brake, told me:
	"Unfortunately there are no statistics on the number of road casualties MP3s have contributed to or caused, but it is a story that we hear time and time again from our bereaved and seriously injured volunteers."
	It added:
	"Distraction, or at least loss of hearing when crossing the road, can be considered a very serious issue indeed."
	I have particular interest in road safety issues as chairman of the all-party road safety group.
	The Department for Transport has been concerned enough about road safety problems associated with people using MP3 players that it has included the issue in its "Think! Road Safety" publicity campaign. It has run television adverts aimed at teenagers to raise awareness of the risks.
	Although I have strayed slightly into defence and road safety, which are clearly the preserve of other Departments, I believe that that the experiences of the Defence and Transport Departments are further evidence that the Government need to take a joined-up approach to dealing with the serious consequences of the population's growing widespread use of MP3 players, which are clearly a health hazard in terms of hearing impairment and quality of hearing for millions of our citizens.
	I suggest that the Department for Children, Schools and Families also has an important role because youngsters need to be alerted to the serious dangers to their hearing posed by extensive use of MP3 players.
	There is no evidence that the industry is taking the matter seriously. I was astonished to read in yesterday's  Colchester Gazette a report headed "Behave at school and you'll get iPods," which said that pupils at the Clacton Coastal academy will be rewarded for good behaviour with gifts that include iPods. Those running the academy clearly need to be educated about the dangers of giving hearing-destroying prizes to their pupils.
	The prevalence of personal music players is unquestionable. Apple has now sold more than 240 million iPods and it seems as though we cannot go anywhere anymore without seeing people using personal music players. Personal music players are all around us and they obviously bring an enormous amount of pleasure to people. My concern is that people are listening to these players at sound levels that are damaging their hearing. There is no need just to take my word on that-it is not at all uncommon to find people on public transport listening to music on their personal music players at such a high level that it almost feels as though we are listening to the music. It seems that people are not aware that something they love could be doing serious damage to their hearing.
	People losing their hearing as a result of listening too loudly to personal music players is something that will manifest itself in the future as a major public health problem. That has enormous implications not only in health terms but-as the cost of audiology provision will likely increase, as will the cost of providing hearing aids and other treatment to those who have unnecessarily lost their hearing as a result of listening to personal music players too loudly-for Britain's economic prosperity. It is already estimated that hearing loss costs the UK economy £13 billion annually through loss of earnings.
	Last September, the European Union's Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks concluded a year-long investigation into whether listening to loud music on personal music players damaged people's hearing. Its conclusion was unequivocal-listening to personal music players at high volume over a sustained period of time could lead to permanent hearing loss. As a result of that report, the European Union's Commissioner for Consumer Affairs announced at an RNID press conference that she had mandated the European Union's standardisation bodies to develop new technical safety standards for personal music players with respect to the risk of hearing loss. It will take some time, but the RNID expects that as a result of the action taken in Europe all MP3 players within two years will be sold with a volume limit of 80dB-a safe level. It is important to state that this is not over-regulation and that the volume limiter is not the work of a nanny state. Users have the option of overriding the volume limit, but it is hoped that having to take that step will provide real encouragement for people to listen to their personal music players at safe levels.
	The work that the European Union has done on this issue is groundbreaking, but this goes beyond regulation. People need to be better educated about the risks that are associated with listening to personal music players at loud volumes. The industry can play a significant role by providing information about how consumers can minimise the risk of damaging their hearing when using personal music players and by providing good-quality headphones with products that do not encourage users to turn up the volume to unsafe levels to drown out background noise.
	This is an issue of corporate responsibility. The sea of white headphones that one sees around suggests that many people are not willing to invest in noise-isolating headphones, and instead stick with the headphones that are provided as standard with personal music players. My concern is that those standard headphones are of such low quality that they encourage users to turn the volume up to unsafe levels to hear the music they want to listen to. Poor-quality headphones are posing a real risk to the hearing of many people who use personal music players. If some of the larger companies provided noise-isolating headphones as standard they would steal a march on their competitors and take a real step forward in terms of corporate responsibility. That would make a real contribution to the hearing health of this nation and would ensure that such companies' present customer base did not stop buying future products because they could not hear them.
	People need to be aware that listening to loud music, particularly on personal music players at a loud level, poses a risk to their health, but at the moment they are not aware of that. I feel strongly that the Government should take up this issue and launch a public awareness campaign. Just as people are aware that smoking can have serious negative consequences for their health, so they should be aware that listening to personal music players at a high volume can seriously damage their hearing. I therefore invite the Minister to launch a Department of Health-co-ordinated approach across Government to deal with the negative health aspects of MP3s through an awareness campaign that is based on the RNID's "Don't Lose the Music" campaign. Following discussions with colleagues, the RNID tells me:
	"The Department of Health have definitely never run an awareness raising campaign relating to hearing loss and MP3 players."
	The series of parliamentary questions from the past three years that I read out earlier tends to confirm that. It is time that the Department of Health had an awareness campaign. Let tonight mark the launch of such a campaign, so that people will not suffer from hearing problems now or in future.

Phil Hope: I congratulate the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) on securing this important debate. I know that he, as chair of the all-party group for noise reduction, has been a strong and passionate campaigner on this issue for many years, in which time he has drawn the House's attention to the risk that personal music systems pose to long-term hearing. From a health perspective, I share his concern. Preserving people's hearing has been, and continues to be, an important issue for the Government.
	I am pleased that our national audiology strategy has reduced waits for audiology tests to an average of two weeks, compared with 26 weeks just three years ago. It is also helping to replace traditional analogue hearing aids with new digital hearing aids as the preferred option for people with hearing problems. I mention those two examples of the transformation of recent years to show that we take this issue very seriously, and rightly so. About one in five adults in England experiences hearing loss, more than a quarter of whom are aged between 16 and 60-years-old. We must do all we can to stop preventable hearing loss and to reduce harmful exposure to noise from any source. That is certainly an area in which we can make a difference.
	I know from what I see, and increasingly hear, in my own constituency that MP3 players are very widespread, as the hon. Gentleman said. They are ubiquitous. Many people, especially young people, when listening to bands such as Arcane Enigma and Now There Is Only Carnage-two bands from my constituency-have a tendency to crank up the volume to the maximum possible levels.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned his experience on the bus, when he was travelling to the House for his early start today. Anyone travelling on the London underground will recognise the annoyance when a fellow commuter plays music so loudly that the whole carriage shares a tinny rendition of Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, or whatever they are playing. As the hon. Gentleman argues, it is not only a nuisance for other travellers, but a long-term threat to the person's hearing.
	To add to the hon. Gentleman's examples, a report by Eurosafe-the European Association for Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion-says that up to one in 10 music listeners risk permanent hearing loss if they listen to a personal music player for more than an hour a week at high volumes over a five-year period. We define high volume as more than 89 dB. Eurosafe estimates that up to 10 million consumers across Europe-a significant proportion from this country-are at risk. I think the hon. Gentleman referred to that figure, too.
	Stories in the UK already suggest that more young people are ending up at audiologists suffering from tinnitus or hearing loss because of exposure to loud music. One audiologist was quoted as saying that he is seeing
	"the sort of damage that in the old days would have come from industrial noise."
	The danger is that many young people could find themselves swapping their headphones for hearing aids later in life because of their listening habits.
	I remind the House that sound-induced hearing damage is not just about deafness. It can cause difficulties understanding speech in noisy environments, prolonged or permanent tinnitus, and hypersensitivity to loud sounds, all of which can affect a person's life profoundly. The initial damage caused by loud noise is often small, causing slight hearing problems that disappear after a while. It tends to be a slow, creeping process, noticed only after the damage is done.
	I welcome the hon. Gentleman's efforts to draw attention to the issue. It is something we should be concerned about and responsive to. That view shared is by the European Commission, which, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, issued a mandate on personal music players to the European standardisation bodies in 2009. Those bodies are in the process of developing new technical safety standards for manufacturers of MP3s.
	The standards have two key requirements: first, that manufacturers set a safe default volume limit on all personal music players and, secondly, that there are adequate warnings-as the hon. Gentleman has called for-for consumers on the risks involved in listening to music at loud volumes. If I might play devil's advocate, I spoke to a group of young people about music earlier today. One guy, Ben, said, "Look, if I want to listen to Bare Groove or Kasabian very loud, then it's my business." A lot of people think that way; they see any form of regulation as a constraint on their ability to choose. They have a point. To some extent, personal choice is important in this debate, and I do not think anyone in the House would want to deny that. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is also fair to say that when some music players on the market are reaching 115 dB-louder than a pneumatic drill-it ceases to be about personal freedom; it is about consumer protection.
	I support the mandate that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. I believe that ANEC-the European consumer group-is right to recommend a default volume limit of 89 dB, with a manual override allowing someone to increase the maximum volume to 100 dB if they so choose. It is also appropriate to consider a lower volume cap for products aimed at children. ANEC is calling for a limit of 80 dB, the rate at which the risk of hearing loss becomes negligible. That seems sensible to me, and offers us the best of both worlds. It gives protection for the youngest and most vulnerable, and gives others the freedom to listen to The Who, The Jam or whatever at a higher volume if they choose, but with clear warnings in place if they manually override the default setting.
	Although responsibility for regulation sits with the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills-a point the hon. Gentleman made-we support the new standards and will work with the European Commission on them. I also understand from the Commission that manufacturers are showing real willingness to work with the Commission to ensure that their products are safe, and I welcome that responsible attitude.
	As the hon. Gentleman suggests, regulation is only one lever for change. The risk of hearing damage depends not just on how loud the noise is, but how long people listen for. Even at 89 dB, prolonged exposure can cause harm, so I agree that educating people and encouraging them to set their music at safe levels continues to be important, not least because it will be some time before the European mandate comes into full effect.
	I recognise the point that the hon. Gentleman makes about the importance of being proactive. He is right to say that we do not believe a Government awareness campaign is appropriate at this stage, but I am keen that we should work with charities such as the RNID and manufacturers better to inform people of the dangers. I am pleased to be able to tell him that I will now ask the officials at the Department to talk to the RNID see if we can work with them on future public awareness work.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned the online campaign, "Don't Lose the Music", which gives people simple advice, such as taking a five-minute break from their MP3 players every hour, or not turning the volume up to drown out noise when they are on the tube. I want to see if we can help the campaign to build on this, as I recognise that too many people do not realise that listening to The Killers or to Dillinja and the valve sound-I have not listened to those myself, but I understand that they are particularly loud-at high volumes can damage their health. There is a big education challenge to meet, but I think we are best served if we can get charities and manufacturers working together, with our support, on better information and advice for consumers.
	We are a nation of music lovers. I confess that I am a fan of Elvis Costello, Nils Lofgren and Lou Reed, so I do not want to do anything to dent my or other people's enjoyment of the excellent music that this country has produced for many years. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is important that people listen to music players safely and without unwittingly-the point that he is making-damaging their hearing. We do not want the fantastic innovation of MP3 players to be spoiled by stories of young people experiencing hearing loss because they are listening to Royworld or Bachman-Turner Overdrive at ear-splitting volumes.
	The European mandate is a helpful starting point for protecting the consumer without infringing people's rights. The Government support the mandate. We welcome the way in which manufacturers have responded so far, and we will work with them and the European Commission to protect our ears. We will work with the RNID and others to introduce public awareness campaigns to ensure that we can all continue to enjoy our music in the years ahead.